tian. To aid these commercial courts there should be two civil tribunals, composed of two foreigners and two Egyptians, presided over by a native Egyptian. The court of appeals in Alexandria should have jurisdiction over decisions of the civil courts. Disputes of Europeans about land and other property have always been decided by our courts. They have always decided properly; their judges understand their business thoroughly; foreign judges are not needed there. I propose that they be left as they are. The question of the permanency of the judges has attracted your attention. You rightly think that permanency in office might be inconvenient in new courts, as yet untried; and you propose five years as a term, so that the efficiency of the new system may be thoroughly tested, to the complete satisfaction of both parties. Criminal trials are more complicated than civil or commercial cases. They might be submitted to the letter and spirit of the capitulations, as was done in Mehemet Ali's time. How were criminal cases conducted in the time of the great Viceroy? When a crime or offense was committed by a foreigner, the governor of the citadel of Cairo investigated the case, judged it, and sent the condemned, with the judgment, to his consul, to have sentence executed. As the number of Europeans was not large at that time, and crimes were few, consuls had not much trouble with their countrymen. I do not remember a troublesome case; or if there was mistaken lenity, there was no serious consequence. Those kind of affairs passed off quietly, as all were interested in the maintenance of order, and had the will and power to maintain it. I must observe, however, that this kind of process did not entirely accord with the capitulations; they did not remove foreigners from the jurisdiction of the country, but subjected their trial to the supreme court, and allowed their interpreters to act for them in their defense; and the judgment was always executed. Since Mehemet Ali's time the number of Europeans has increased, and of course crime has increased in proportion; and as consuls began to disregard the judgments of the government, both consuls and interpreters were ordered to be present at the trial. But this mode of proceeding, at first satisfactory, soon began to fall into disrepute. In 1848, the consuls, urged by their countrymen, took justice into their own hands, contrary to law, only having the presence of a local policeman, under pretext that, as the penalty was to be executed in their own country, the trial ought to be conducted according to the laws of that country in order to be valid. Such is the present state of things, not only in criminal cases, but in trials for offenses and misdemeanors. Justice is thus completely given up to individual will, instead of being rendered by the proper institutions. The position of government is no longer tenable, when we reflect that its officials have not the power to prevent the slightest infractions, or enforce the road regulations or coach rules in public places; for, if one consul is disposed to correct a coachman for a violation of regulations, at the request of the police, another will treat the affair as trifling, simply because his colleague thinks it right and important. The present object of your highness's government, therefore, is not to do away with the capitulations, but to conform to their letter and spirit, and call for the removal of the abuse of personal power by the representatives of foreign governments. Now what is the intent of the capitulations? It is to protect the foreigner, not to give him unlimited license. This protection is furnished by the courts, with the dragoman's assistance, and the right of appeal to the supreme court. The objections to the civil courts have been applied to these; that is, the absence of law, and the want of responsible judges. Desiring to regulate intercourse with foreign powers, and laying aside the inalienable right of every government to make every inhabitant of the territory amenable to the laws, your highness has done well to propose the organization of mixed criminal courts, similar to the civil tribunals of that kind. The capitulations make the domicile and person of the foreigner inviolable. It is not the intention to abrogate this principle. Your highness wishes to strengthen it; you wish to give the European, accused of crime, greater protection than the capitulations afford him; in place of a silent dragoman, you would give him European judges and a jury of natives and Europeans. If more security is demanded, your highness will grant it; for your intention is to protect the honest citizen, whose safety is endan gered by the impunity of criminals. Minor infractions, such as the French law terms offenses or misdemeanors, will be submitted to these mixed tribunals. An appeal is allowable in all cases to the supreme court at Alexandria, with every possible guarantee. Only the penalty of imprisonment shall apply in Egypt; and the imprisonment shall be at the consulate if the consul demands it. After the courts are organized, attention will be paid to the laws to be observed in them. The French code of commerce, already adopted at Constantinople by the pow ers, is the legislation that now rules in Egypt. For the civil law, your highness intends to invite a commission of foreign jurists to join our lawyers in arranging the provisions of the code Napoleon, so as to accord with our legislation. That labor is already half accomplished; the conclusion of it will neither be long nor arduous. The commission will also be instructed to make our penal laws harmonize with those of the French penal code. In conclusion, all that your highness asks is a return to the capitulations, both in civil and criminal matters; and such a return as will give strangers a greater security than was formerly accorded by those capitulations. The court, as now arranged, is a court of natives, that decides in presence of the dragoman, who is merely a mute witness, without a deliberative vote. Your highness wants a reform, giving foreigners a true court in place of the mute witness, with a revised code, and a mixed jury, in accordance with European penal and civil laws. This organization, fashioned upon the judiciary system of Algeria, offers all desirable guarantees, in my opinion. Your highness thinks the powers cannot refuse this reform; for they have always advocated every moral and material development in Egypt. In the present condition of the country, if they refused to support this most valuable social guarantee, they would be offering obstacles to progress and endangering the existence of Egypt. N. NUBAR. Lord Stanley to Colonel Stanton. FOREIGN OFFICE, October 18, 1867. SIR: I have received your letter of the 9th instant, on the subject of the reforms which the Viceroy of Egypt desires to introduce into the judicial system in that country. I had previously received from Mr. Fane a copy of the memorandum on the subject which Nubar Pasha had laid before the Viceroy, and Nubar Pasha, during his stay in this country, had entered upon it with me. Her Majesty's government cannot doubt that the system which now prevails in Egypt in regard to suits in which foreigners on the one hand, and the government and people of Egypt on the other, are concerned, is as injurious to the interests of all parties as it is certainly without warrant of any treaty engagement. Her Majesty's government are perfectly willing, therefore, to lend their aid to the Egyptian government in an attempt to establish a better system, and if the Egyptian government succeed in obtaining the concurrence of other powers for the same purpose, you may assure Nubar Pasha that the cordial co-operation of Great Britain will not be withheld from so salutary a work. You will say, however, that her Majesty's government consider that practical results, even though they may fall short of theoretical perfection, are principally to be aimed at, and that accordingly it might be advantageous, at all events in the beginning, not to attempt to frame a new code of law or proceedure, but to apply, as far as altered circumstances may admit, an improved system of procedure to the law as it at present stands, amended in any necessary particulars by the legislation of foreign governments in similar matters; and I do not hesitate to say that in the application of this principle her Majesty's government would not be disposed to insist on the embodiment in the new arrangement of the maxims of British law in contradistinction to those of the law of any foreign country; they would look rather to the requirements of natural justice, and to the means, from whatever source derived, by which those requirements could best be provided for. It appears to her Majesty's government that the basis on which proceedings should be initiated might with the greater safety, and with the view to more early results, be the adaptation to altered circumstances of the principles laid down in the ancient capitulations, the departure from which has led in a great measure to the evils so justly felt. Those capitulations, indeed, were established under a very different state of things from that which now exists, and their object was to secure foreigners from arbitrary violence and exactions on the part of the local authorities. But still, although reserving for extra-territorial tribunals exclusively the settlement of questions, whether of a civil or criminal nature, in which foreigners were alone concerned, the capitulations did not pretend to deprive the local government of jurisdiction over foreigners in matters, whether criminal or civil, in which they were brought into collision with the laws of the territorial sovereign. They reserved, however, as a protection to foreigners against the arbitrary local will of tribunals, a certain right of concurrence or supervision, which might act as a check against abuse. In process of time this check, especially in Egypt, has become the great abuse, and by degrees the authority of the local tribunals has been usurped or set aside by the encroachments of an extra-territorial jurisdiction. This is the state of things which the Egyptian government desire to remedy, and they cannot be more disposed to make the attempt than are her Majesty's government to second them in it. Her Majesty's government have no fondness for an extra-territorial jurisdiction, even if limited by the strict letter of the capitulations. They would hail with the utmost satisfaction such an improvement in the judicial system of the Ottoman empire, and specifically of Egypt, which is so important a part of it, as would justify them in altogether renouncing any judicial action in that country, and leaving the disputes of their subjects, and the crimes which they may commit, to the exclusive jurisdiction of the local government, as is the case in other countries. With such feelings, her Majesty's government are certainly not inclined to hold out for a jurisdiction to which they have no treaty right, which they admit to be a usurpation, though brought about by force of circumstances, and which is as injurious to British interests as it is derogatory to the character and well-being of the Egyptian administration. But her Majesty's government consider-and they are glad to perceive that such is the ground on which the application of the Egyptian government is founded-that foreign powers have a right to expect that any new system which may be inaugurated in Egypt should afford ample security to the foreigner that in pleading before an Egyptian tribunal he will have nothing to apprehend from the venality, the ignorance, or the fanaticism of his judges; that the law to be applied to his case, whether as plaintiff or defendant, shall be clear and patent to all; and that the forms of procedure, and more especially in matters of testimony, shall be well defined, and not admit of being in any point arbitrarily departed from on any ground whatever. Her Majesty's government consider that the course which the Egyptian government propose to adopt for arriving at the end in view is that most likely to lead to a good result, if, as I said before, the inquiry is to be directed to what is really practicable rather than what may be desirable in the abstract. Her Majesty's government will readily take part in any inquiry which may be set on foot for this purpose; and when the Egyptian government shall have made known to them that they have secured the consent of the other principal powers to be represented by commissioners in a preliminary inquiry designed to result in an improved judicial system in Egypt, her Majesty's government will at once name one or more commissioners to assist on their part in the business. If, as will naturally be the case, the commission is to sit in Egypt, her Majesty's government are disposed to think that instead of limiting the character of the commissioners to that of persons possessing legal knowledge, it would be desirable that the chief political representative of each nation should also take part in the commission, inasmuch as political considerations are to a certain extent involved in the inquiry, and so, by such an intermixture of character among the commissioners, predilections in favor of technicalities which might be expected to prevail in an assembly of purely legal commissioners would in a great measure be neutralized. You may furnish Nubar Pasha with a copy of this dispatch, as containing the answer of her Majesty's government to the proposal which he has laid before them on behalf of the Viceroy; and you will inform his excellency, at the same time, that her Majesty's ambassador at Constantinople will, as a mark of respect due to the Sultan, be instructed to communicate it to the Porte; while her Majesty's representatives at other courts will in like manner be authorized to communicate it to the governments to which they are accredited, as an exposition of the manner in which the proposal of the Egyptian government has been received by that of her Majesty. I am, &c., Mr. Seward to Mr. Moran. STANLEY. No. 14.] DEPARTMENT OF STATE, SIR: The correspondence recorded in your legation is full of remon strances and expostulations, which, by the President's direction, I have addressed to her Majesty's government against the imprisonment of Messrs. Warren and Costello. The reasons have been fully and frequently assigned why the judicial severity maintained by the British government in these cases has tended to embarrass the friendly relations between the two countries, and to protract the political excitement which has so greatly disturbed the peace of the British realm and of the British provinces adjacent to the United States. On many occasions I have had the honor to urge upon the British government the necessity of a modification of the laws of the British realm in the case of subjects of Great Britain who have become citizens of the United States under our naturalization laws. By the President's direction, also, I have with much urgency invited the British government to enter into an equal treaty with the United States on that subject, as a proceeding which is essential for the removal of discontents which, if suffered to continue, might involve the two nations in reprisal or war. Hitherto these proceedings have been unfruitful, although we have many friendly assurances of a favorable disposition on the part of the British government. In connection with this matter, the President now makes it my duty to give you a copy of a resolution of the House of Representatives of the United States, which was passed on the 15th of June, "requesting the President to take such measures as shall appear proper to secure the release from imprisonment of Messrs. Warren and Costello, convicted and sentenced in Great Britain for words and acts spoken and done in this country, by ignoring our naturalization laws, and to take such other measures as will secure their return to our flag with such ceremonies as are appropriate to the occasion." I further call your attention to the fact that a bill which has passed the House of Representatives is now engaging the attention of the Senate, the effect of which bill, if it shall become a law, will be to require the President to make reprisals in cases of judicial denial in Great Britain to naturalized Americans of the rights which are conceded there to native American citizens. You will be expected to read the resolution referred to, together with this instruction to her Majesty's principal secretary of state for foreign affairs, and to give him a copy of these papers if he shall request it. I am, sir, your obedient servant, BENJAMIN MORAN, Esq., &c., &c., &c. WILLIAM H. SEWARD. FORTIETH CONGRESS, SECOND SESSION-CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, June 15, 1868. On motion of Mr. Robinson, Resolved, That the President of the United States is hereby requested by this House to take such measures as shall appear proper to secure the release from imprisonment of Messrs. Warren and Costello, convicted and sentenced in Great Britain for words and acts spoken and done in this country, by ignoring our naturalization laws, and to take such other measures as will secure their return to our flag, with such ceremonies as are appropriate to the occasion. Attest: EWD. MCPHERSON, Clerk. Mr. Moran to Mr. Seward. [Extract.] No. 60.] LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, London, June 27, 1868. SIR: The exciting political event of the week has been the debate in the House of Lords on Mr. Gladstone's suspensory bill; a bill to prohibit any but essentially necessary appointments in the Irish established But church. From the temper of the hereditary branch of the legislature it is believed by close observers of the spirit manifested in that body that the bill will be thrown out by more than one hundred peers. the telegraph will supply the result of the vote long before this can reach you. The bill has been much discussed. Many whigs object to it totally. Many liberals want time to consider. Many think it unnecessary, since no great appointments are likely to be made, except with reservation as to future legislation. The bishops are all agreed to oppose. Thus the question will be settled for this year by the vote in the Lords, which will probably be arrived at on Monday. I was present last evening, and heard Lord Carnarvon deliver his able and well-considered speech. There was an unusually large attendance of peers, as well as of spectators, and his lordship's remarks were frequently greeted with loud approbation by the opposition. Altogether it was a masterly effort for a man who has not yet passed his thirtyseventh year. I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant, Hon. WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State, Washington, D. C. BENJAMIN MORAN. Mr. Moran to Mr. Seward. No. 66.] LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES. SIR: The telegraph will have informed you long before this can reach Washington, of the arrival in London this week of Sir Robert Napier from his successful military expedition to Abyssinia, and of the vote of thanks to him and his officers and men, passed unanimously on Thursday evening by Parliament. Herewith I transmit a copy of the Times of the 3d instant, containing reports of the speeches made in both houses by the movers and seconders of these resolutions of thanks. An episode of a remarkable character occurred in the House of Lords the same evening, in the debate on the boundary bill. Earl Russell and other opposition leaders left the House with the mass of their fol lowers, on the ground that the government had broken faith with them. The event is said to be without precedent, and has been much discussed, particularly as it was followed in the same place by a rather stormy scene last night. I inclose copies of the leading newspapers of the day containing comments upon these novel incidents. I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant, Hon. WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State, Washington, D. C. BENJAMIN MORAN. Mr. Moran to Mr. Seward. No. 70.] LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, SIR: With respect to your dispatch No. 12, of the 16th ultimo, I have the honor to state that I have forwarded to Lord Stanley the two volumes to which it refers, containing expressions of condolence and sym |